Part 8: So-Called Primitive Accumulation 

This is the last section of the book, so this post will conclude the notes and summary from Capital Vol 1.

Chap 26: The Secret of Primitive Accumulation 
In order for capitalism to have arisen, there must have already been some that had the means to buy labor power, and others that could be that labor power. How did this situation happen. Marx says: “Never mind! It came to pass that the former sort accumulated wealth, and the latter sort finally had nothing to sell but their own skins.” Despite this, he proposes that capitalist society grew out of feudal society. The dissolution of feudalism set the peasants free, but without land to provide for them, all they had was their own labor to sell. The immediate producer that worked the land could only dispose of his own labor as he wished when he was no longer bound to the soil. To become a perfectly free seller of his own labor power, he would need to be free also from the guilds and their restrictive regulations. 

Hence, the historical movement which changes producers (the serfs producing on farms) into wage-laborers is their emancipation from serfdom and the fetters of guilds. These men could only become sellers of themselves once they had been stripped of their own means of production and all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangement.  

Chap 27: The Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land 
This chapter is essentially a more particular look into the process outlined in the last chapter, of peasant farmers being released from feudalism. 

Chap 28: Bloody Legislation against the Expropriated since the End of the Fifteenth Century. 
The Forcing Down of Wages by Act of Parliament.
The proletariat created by the dissolving of feudal estates were turned loose in society, as free, but now without means. Many could not adapt to the discipline of this new condition and in massive quantities, were turned into beggars, robbers, and vagabonds. To counteract this new wave of crime, the governments enacted brutal legislation against vagabondage throughout western Europe. Some instances are detailed in this chapter. 

Marx then looks at wage laws passed during the time. He mentions a compulsory extension of the work-week; wage ceilings set, and higher penalties on taking higher wages than on receiving them. 

In the sixteenth century, wages rose, but not in proportion to the depreciation of money and corresponding rise in prices of commodities. Real wages therefore fell. 

Chap 29: The Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer 
The capitalist farmer developed originally from small farmers, not too much distinct from peasants, but who, provided with seed, cattle and farm implements from a landlord, could employ labor to help him farm. He next became a sharecropper, dividing the crop yields with the landlord and himself. But soon enough, he has enough to pay rent to the landlord and simply farm the produce for himself. During subsequent centuries of land reform and agricultural revolution, he was able to usurp land without cost. There was subsequently a devaluation of money so that he was able to pay less to his workers. 

Chap 30: Impact of Agricultural Revolution on Industry. The Creation of a Home Market for Industrial Capital. 
Short chapter repeating the charge that the displacement of agricultural workers meant a mass of people desperately looking for work and therefore ripe for exploitation. 

Chap 31: The Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist 
Continuation of chap 26’s hypothesis. But adding credit. The middle ages, says Marx, handed down two forms of capital: usury and merchant. The money capital formed by usury and commerce was prevented by organization of the countryside and guilds in towns from turning into industrial capital. But the dissolution of feudalism released those fetters. But particularly it was the system of credit that was developed in Genoa and Venice that took hold in Europe. The national debt became the benchmark of national wealth. Credit became the credo of capitalism. 

Chap 32: The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation 
This is a good recap of where Marx has gotten to. The expropriation of immediate producers; serfs on feudal lands, of private property based on the labor of its owner is the start. Private property, as the antithesis to social, collective property, exists only where the means of labor and the external conditions of labor belong to private individuals. The private property of the worker in his means of production is the foundation of small-scale industry. It is necessary for the development of social production and of the free individuality of the worker himself.  It flourishes, unleashes the whole of its energy, attains its classical form only where the peasant owns the land he cultivates, or the artisan owns the tool with which he is accomplished performer. This mode presupposes the fragmentation and dispersal of the means of production. But this is narrow and will decree universal mediocrity. This will bring the material means of its own destruction. It has to be annihilated and it will. Fragmented means of production will be concentrated. As soon as the capitalist mode of production takes off, the further socialization and transformation of means occurs. The expropriation of labor further centralizes and one capitalist strikes down others. Exploitation grows and so does the revolt of the working class. Eventually the whole system collapses. 

Chap 33: The Modern Theory of Colonization 
Not gonna say much here. Marx goes through some examples of capitalist oppression with the British East India Company.